Tuesday 15 March 2011 03.05 EDT
First published on Tuesday 15 March 2011 03.05 EDT

Deprived of Facebook and Wiis and shunted out into the bright light and fresh air of the playground, today's children do not, it seems, stare morosely at the concrete or send texts until the bell is rung.

Traditional games such as tag and the evergreen – and often scatological – Ipi–dipi-dation are still popular but children are also incorporating cultural figures including Beyoncé and Simon Cowell into their play.

After spending more than two years watching children play, researchers from the universities of London, East London and Sheffield concluded that popular media are informing, rather than destroying, playground life.

Children not only act out the twisted psychodramas of Britain's Got Talent and the Jeremy Kyle Show and stage scaled-down versions of High School Musical and Harry Potter, but also use their computer games as a basis for acted-out war and fantasy games.

Prof Jackie Marsh of the University of Sheffield said the research demonstrated how children have responded to the new media age. "Today's children have to manage an increasingly complex world of technology and information and the project has shown how these aspects of their lives are crucially important for their social, emotional and cultural development," she said. "The playground provides an important space for children to engage with how their culture is changing in a digital age."

The study, which received £600,000 funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, also found that, far from merely aping what they had seen online or on the TV screen, children pick, choose, combine and reinvent to come up with new games and scenarios.

One child involved in the research described a favourite game that could have been seen in any playground since the 1960s: "Some people play Dr Who by choosing characters from the show and then improvising. They travel to different places in the police box, fight villains and save the world."

The findings of the study – Children's Playground Games and Songs in the New Media Age – will be unveiled on Tuesday at the British Library by former children's laureate Michael Rosen.

The film, which mixes interviews with boys and girls aged 6-11 with footage of children at play, is billed as "a fascinating insight into the world of the playground as seen by the children themselves".

The leader of the project, Andrew Burn of the Institute of Education, said the work showed that pretend play was still flourishing.

"Children have always enjoyed enacting scenarios from their home or school lives, as well as fantasy stories involving witches, zombies, princesses, martial arts warriors and other figures," he said.